Research Programs

Research Programs

Work on earlier programmes investigating infections in areas such as respiratory, dermal, ocular and biofilms carries on as research projects, including academic and/or commercial collaborations and grant funded programmes.

Destiny currently has four grant funded research collaborations investigating the potential of drug candidates from the XF platform.

Destiny Pharma signed a research collaboration agreement with Aston University to examine novel compounds from the XF platform and assess their potential to prevent, control and eradicate dangerous bacteria in biofilms. Serious infections are sometimes caused and exacerbated by biofilms where bacteria can hide and be protected from traditional anti-infective agents. XF compounds have already shown efficacy in biofilm models and this research project will explore the potential further, including looking at the mechanisms-of-action.

A second project was signed with Southampton University as a National Biofilms Innovation Centre (NBIC) funded research collaboration. The project will examine the use of the company’s novel XF compounds to prevent, control, and eradicate chronic clinical infections with underlying biofilm involvement, such as those in diabetic foot ulcers and cystic fibrosis.

A third grant was awarded in 2019 under the UK-China AMR fund. It will examine the potential for XF drugs to treat dermal and ocular infections and R&D work is conducted in collaboration with Cardiff University and Tianjin Medical University, China.

The fourth and most recent grant award was also from the NBIC in partnership with Sheffield University. The project aims to establish the potential of two of the company’s proprietary XF drug compounds, DPD-207 and XF-73, as novel treatments for drug-resistant, bacterial and fungal infections in a dynamic ex vivo eye model.

Destiny Pharma also continued to strengthen its patent estate, with the grant of the XF biofilm patent in Canada in February 2018, bringing the total number of XF platform granted patents to 95.